


Heavens Above

by vell_ichor



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clotpole, F/M, and it's really embarrassing, arthur makes an ass of himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27546880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vell_ichor/pseuds/vell_ichor
Summary: The first time Arthur saw Gwen, he tripped and hurtled into a bush.And shockingly, that wasn't the most humiliating thing he did during their first meeting.
Relationships: Gwen & Morgana (Merlin), Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 45





	Heavens Above

The first time Arthur saw Gwen, he tripped and hurtled into a bush.

England was in the swollen peak of summer when he made a complete tit of himself; and of course Merlin was there to laugh and take pictures and generally be unhelpful about the whole thing. Gwen had been on her way to Morgana’s house (which was more of a manor, really), and Arthur and Merlin had been on their way out. Her sundress, yellow and pretty and flowy, was swishing from her shoulders like lovely sunflowers dancing in an evening breeze. He saw that first, and his head jerked a little to catch sight of the woman who wore it. Arthur was not prepared for the moment later, when her eyes, which glowed like dark ambers in the high afternoon sun, peeked out from beneath her wide brimmed hat to flash him a perfect smile. And then he lost himself in her gaze and went absolutely _flying._ He expected his foot to hit the penultimate concrete step leading away from the grassy path, but instead his heel glanced off of the hard edge of it, with all of his weight shoved into the misstep. His mouth barely had the time to form an ‘O’ before he was tumbling through open air and landing with a loud, rustling thud into the shrubbery by the foot of the short staircase. Gwen blinked in bewilderment, staring for a while before she finally snapped out of it and rushed over to help him.

“Are you alright?” she asked as she tried to fish him out of the sharp branches and broad, waxy green leaves he was buried in. The only thing she received in response was a mortified groan. Merlin was near doubled in laughter a few feet away, opting to start filming rather than leaving it at photos as Gwen grabbed Arthur bodily by the bicep and started to yank. Merlin made precisely zero moves to try and help. “Hello, Merlin. How are you?”

“Brilliant!” he said with a wide smile as the bright laughter continued to bubble out of him, “This is the best thing that has happened all week.”

“Glad _you’re_ having a good time, Merlin,” Arthur grumbled. He tried to help Gwen out by pushing himself up, but it was a bush, and not really made to hold his body weight. So when he pushed against the dark brown branches, they snapped beneath him and he plummeted back to the ground with a low _oomph_ sound. Merlin was laughing so hard he’d slipped into a near silent, wheezing struggle against his own body to stop and breathe. Gwen rolled back her shoulders, and hauled him from the bush in one quick, fluid motion that was fuelled by her impatience alone. The sun stared down at them like a big, hot eye. The air smelled like the sprawling, lush green countryside—so, cow shit.

“Um. Hello,” Arthur said, completely flushed and wide-eyed. He looked like he’d just been dragged through a bush backwards—because he had—but offered a scratched-up hand anyway. His next words fell out in a halting, wobbly mess. “I’m Ar…thur.”

Merlin just stared, utterly blown away by his friend’s ineptitude with women as well as men.

She took his hand slowly. “Morgana’s brother?”

He winced, “She hasn’t said anything about me, has she?”

She thought about all the stories Morgana had regaled her with: the time Arthur was tired from training and drank vinegar thinking it was water despite the smell, the time Arthur accidentally set one of their toasters on fire with a sparkler, somehow, the time Arthur drove his car into a river. It admittedly wasn’t difficult to reconcile those tales with the dishevelled man stood before him. She looked him in the eye.

“No.”

“Oh. Good!” He smiled brightly at her, and something fluttered in her chest. Gwen swallowed and cast her eyes away. They found Morgana’s house, cutting against the sky as if it was a magazine clipping stuck onto its brilliant blue. It was only five minutes away, and she could see the window into the study where she and Morgana would be working soon. It was nice in there. Cosy, with thick, shamrock curtains and armchairs with those pillows so soft they felt otherworldly. Then Gwen blinked, realizing.

“Er…I don’t mean to be rude, but…” she looked down at the hand he was still holding.

“Hmm…?” he stared at their clasped hands. “Oh. Right.”

Weirdly, there was a moment of delay between his catching up to the horrifying reality that he was still holding her hand and actually letting go of it. When he did in fact register that his hand should have been moving—and that it had become horrendously sweaty—he snatched it away like she was a hot poker and held it to his chest. Merlin snorted.

“Hey, I like your dress. How are you? How’re Elyan and Tom?”

“Oh, I’m alright, thanks. Elyan’s still off on his apprenticeship,” she said, and there was a note of tiredness in her voice. He was rarely home these days. “And dad’s…working.”

Merlin raised a brow in that way that always said _We’re talking about it later._ A bird trilled somewhere far away as clouds crawled their weary ways across the cerulean sky. Arthur glanced between them in the tense quiet that ensued.

“Oh…kay.” His own raised brow eloquently explained that the nuances of anything approaching emotional intelligence were entirely lost on him. The ability to understand such complexities was probably beneath his repression somewhere. Maybe. “How do you know Morgana?”

Gwen turned to him and tilted her head. “We’re partners.”

“Partners?”

“Hm? Oh! Oh. No, no—not like that—ha! I mean, Morgana is lovely and everything…beautiful and all that, but we’re not—I’m not. Gosh, I worded that badly. I promise I didn’t mean…you know. I do like girls! And—er, boys but. We really aren’t, and I don’t want to—um. Science!” she spluttered, rudely reminded of the crush she’d had on Morgana just last year. She was over it, she was, but that didn’t stop her face burning in embarrassment. “Science…thing.”

Merlin’s eyebrows shot up his forehead as he spoke quietly. “ _Wow._ ”

“Right,” Arthur said, ignoring him. Silence. Then—

“Well—”

“What’s your name—”

“Oh!” she smiled. “Guinevere! But most people call me Gwen.”

It was then that Arthur carried out one of his deepest, deepest regrets, and said:

“I’m not most people, Guinevere.”

The atmosphere grew heavy with something weird. It just fell over them in a thick, dark cloud as the three of them looked at each other. Gwen watched him inhale once, sharp as a blade, like he'd been struck. Then open his mouth as if to say something. But the words (whatever they were) died on his lips, never to be cast out into the world. Seeing this and finally feeling pity, Merlin clamped a hand onto his arm and gave Gwen a bright smile. Arthur’s mouth was hanging open a little as he stared into the middle distance, replaying the abysmal thing he’d said a moment before over and over again in disbelief, like a record seizing and clicking, desperately scrambling to move on, already. It seemed as if he was, on the most fundamental of levels, struggling to comprehend that _those_ words had left _his_ mouth. _Oh my God,_ he mouthed to himself as Merlin began to walk them further down the rest of the beaten path leading away from Morgana’s house. There was a tightness to his face. Even _he_ couldn’t stand there and let that shambolic situation go on. Not in good conscience, anyway.

Gwen blinked. “Um. Alright…”

 _I’m not most people, Guinevere._ Heavens above.

“It was nice to see you, Gwen!” he said cheerily, continuing to steer them away, “Don’t forget that I’m coming over for dinner this Friday!”

“Yes, of course,” she responded quietly, a little dazed, before offering up a soft smile and turning away from them.

Arthur stole a final glance at her retreating figure. A breeze swept up her dress a little and its light, lemon fabric fluttered at her knees, as picturesque as a vintage polaroid. She held her hat to her head as the wind picked up in a short, sputtered burst that shifted her long hair, before settling into serene stillness. He tried not to watch her back muscles as she lowered her arm again before continuing down the path. A high, anguished sound rung from his throat before he lifted his hands to his face. Arthur’s arms were littered in small scratches from the literal bush he’d fallen into. She was beautiful, and kind, and gentle, and definitely thought he was the weirdest man she'd ever beheld.

“I completely humiliated myself,” he mumbled. Merlin nodded as he unwrapped an apple flavoured lollipop. “‘Guinevere’? How have I never met her before now?”

His best friend shrugged. “I’m not the one who said ‘ _I don’t go to_ pubs _, Merlin, I’ve got self-respect._ ’”

Arthur bristled at the impression of his voice. He did _not_ sound that pompous!

“Come now, that was—”

“Gwen’s really nice,” Merlin said around the lollipop in his mouth, “Don’t you think?”

Arthur tried to banish the butterflies swarming in his stomach. There was the liquid brown of her eyes, the shine of her smile, the solid strength of her grip as she dragged him out of that goddamn bush. Then there was the kindness in her voice, and the openness about her that sent a thrill of fear flashing through him. But it was the good kind of fear, the kind that he felt before a big football match, the kind that made his blood run redder and his heart thud. The kind of fear that made one feel alive.

He pursed his lips. “I suppose.”

Merlin was trying not to laugh. It made his cheeks hurt. “You cocked that up, mate.”

Arthur groaned so loud a magpie flew from a nearby tree.

* * *

“I just met your brother,” Gwen said mildly as she shucked her hat in Morgana’s doorway and hung it on a rack she'd actually made herself. Her friend glanced up at her with piercing blue eyes that glittered with curiosity.

The manor was as imposing as it always was. The golden rays that swept in from the long windows of the walls went a way toward dragging it out of the heaviness that sat in the dark cupboards and tables, and the enormous bookshelf that lined an entire wall with dusty tomes which gave the room something almost like gravitas. Everything was swirling somehow. Swirling wood. Swirling banisters. Swirling wrought iron sitting on the windows like crowns. Morgana did not always seem quite at home in this place. The subtle jitter to her betrayed her restlessness.

“He’s an idiot,” Morgana sniffed, casually draped across a chair at her dining table and sipping orange juice from a wine glass.

She smiled uneasily, unable to forget the way his hair had stuck up like a bird’s nest when she’d managed to pull him from that bush. It was completely ridiculous that she found that visual even slightly endearing. He fell into a _bush_. A bush! She could not fantasize about an idiot like that. Absolutely not.

“He’s certainly…something.”

Morgana narrowed her eyes at her. “Gwen.”

“Yes?” She made her way out of the doorway after toeing off her lacy white flats. The manor was always a little bit cold, no matter how warm it was outside.

“You’re doing that thing.” Morgana sat up and placed the orange juice on the table. It sloshed around in the glass, and Gwen stared at the drop that hit the dark oakwood in an effort not to look her in the eye. The wood bled black, stained by the drink.

“What thing?”

“That thing where you play with your hair while you talk about a crush.”

She looked down at her hands, which were indeed messing with her tight curls, and her eyes widened.

Shit.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed the fic <3


End file.
